Friday, April 27, 2012

This week's granny is purple and black/gray. Four down, sixteen to go.

This is going to be a colorful quilt. In fact, I used scrap pieces in every color.

I love how these Mod Mosaic blocks look. I just wish that they didn't take so long to put together. I also find it a bit time-consuming to get the final size right. I want all the blocks to be 12.5 inches. For this block, I had to add a couple additional strips that weren't part of my original layout. It ended up being fine, but it takes more time to stop and plan additional aspects of the block.

But, I'm so excited to see the blocks my bee-mates are posting on Flickr. I CAN'T WAIT to put this one together. I'm hoping to churn out my remaining four blocks before I receive all the other blocks in the mail. That way, I can get this puppy put together ASAP!

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

I meant to post about these quilts last week and totally spaced it. I guess that's what you get when you're chasing after three little kids, working full-time, and never feeling like there are enough hours in a day.

Anyway, here are my first FINISHED quilts of 2012! Took me long enough, right?

I mentioned in this WIP Wednesday post that my nephew and his wife had twin boys a couple months after I had my baby. We were so excited for them! And while I was floored at the thought of becoming a great-aunt at 29 (although, let's be honest, I've been a "great" aunt since I was 5), I was super excited for my parents to become great-grandparents and for my sister to become a grandma. The only downside is that my nephew and his little family live thousands of miles away in Chile and I won't be able to meet these little guys anytime soon.

And while I couldn't be there to help out while the babies were in the NICU or while my nephew and his wife were living away from home to be close to the hospital, I could make them quilts.

First up is Jayden's quilt. I used a couple-year-old sock monkey print from Moda for this one. I cut 10-inch squares and then stacked them together for the stack and whack method.

I added the green Heather Bailey print (Winter Road in Slate from her Nicey Jane line) for more color variety and used the leftover pieces for a scrappy binding. On the back, I used the sock monkey books fabric, which I happened to get for a steal at my LQS (like 75% off!).

Next up is Sam's quilt. This space robot fabric is from David Walker's Robots line for FreeSpirit. I had a bunch leftover from my son's quilt and decided to use it to make an offset squares quilt inspired by Jessica's Baby Blocks quilt. I added in the green and gray fabrics (I Heart Gears from Rashida Coleman Hale's I Heart line and Kona Charcoal) since I didn't have quite enough robot fabric.

I used the gear fabric for the backing and a Kona yellow for the binding (not sure the exact color).

My typical binding method is to machine stitch the binding to the back of the quilt and then sew it to the front with a nice topstitch. However, I bent my walking foot a while back and my binding has been bothering me on the last few quilt I've made. I used my typical method on Jayden's quilt, but half way through attaching the binding to the front, my walking foot totally stopped working. So I had to use my regular foot to finish. For Sam's quilt, I decided to try Kati's machine binding method, which she demoed at one of our guild meetings. Her method consists of stitching the binding to the front of the quilt, folding it over to the back, and then stitching in the ditch on the front while catching the binding on the back. I was skeptical at first, thinking that I'd have a hard time catching the fabric underneath that I couldn't see. But, after trying it on Sam's quilt, I'm pretty much sold...and I can do it easily without my walking foot.

One of my sisters is making a couple diaper bags using the scraps that I had leftover from the quilts. So, as soon as she finishes those, I hope to get these shipped to their new owners ASAP. It's almost winter in Chile and those babies need to stay warm!

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Welcome Wednesday! This week I worked on mainly the twin quilts, which I'll post about in a day or two, but today is all about quilt blocks.

First up is Granny Square #3, featuring blue and orange. For as much as I love orange, I don't have nearly as many orange scraps as I thought before starting this project. So there are going to be a lot of repeats when this quilt is finished.

I mentioned last week that I made four x&+ blocks for a charity quilt the Salt Lake Modern Quilt Guild (SLMQG) is making. I love how scrappy these are. The quilt is going to look great!

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

I've been slowly chipping away at my to-do list this week. Let's get on with it, shall we?

Accomplished this Week

I managed to make another Granny Squares block - a Halloween version.

I also put together this bee block for Andrea. The directions she gave us calls this a melon block. I'm not sure if that's the correct name or not, but I sure do like it. I want to make a pillow out of this block for my living room, but with each quadrant rotated so the finished block looks like a giant cathedral window instead.

I also finished my Sew Beautiful Bee 2011 quilt top, which I'm calling Circle of Circle of Circle of Flying Geese. Read about it here.

I also made some x&+ blocks, but haven't taken any photos yet. Stay tuned.

No Progress Made

I haven't worked on any of my other WIPs. I realized too that I need to start yet another quilt for my BFF who's getting married in June. She and her new hubs needs a quilt, methinks.

Monday, April 9, 2012

Way back in December of 2010, I decided to have the girls in the Sew Beautiful Bee make circle of flying geese blocks for me. My month was April, so at the end of March 2011, I cut up all my fabric and shipped it out. I received back ten gorgeous blocks and was so excited to put the quilt together. But then they sat and sat and sat.

I toyed with a few layout ideas, but ultimately settled on a circular one. This week I made a double circle of geese block (design credit goes to the amazing Lynne of Lily's Quilts) for the center. And I kinda like how the quilt top turned out.

There are two more blocks that will go on the back, one with gray, yellow, and green geese, and one with gray, yellow, and blue geese.

I definitely need to practice my paper piecing skills though. This quilt top literally wouldn't have been possible without the help of the ladies in my bee. Thank you so much, girls! You are all so talented!

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

My birthday is on Saturday. It's a big one for me - the big 30. I told the mister that I really wanted to go to The Sewing Summit this year, so I set my alarm for 9am so I could take advantage of the $50 discount for the first 50 registrants. Happy birthday to me! I am so excited! I missed it last year because my baby was only a few weeks old. I'm local to Salt Lake, so while I'm sure I could have made it work, I was too sleep deprived to have enjoyed myself. I had a great time meeting up with some of the ladies in the Sew Beautiful Bee though, and am really looking forward to spending time learning new skills and hanging out with people who are as passionate about sewing as I am.

Sunday, April 1, 2012

So I don't sew clothes. I've sewn a couple skirts in the past, but most of those times, I went to my mom's house for help. At quilt market last May, I met Jennifer Paganelli (such a genuinely nice woman) and bought her Girl's World book, thinking it would be nice to have a bunch of patterns to try for my girls.

When I brought the book home, my older daughter loved looking through it. In fact, she pretty much thought the book was just for her. I never ended up making anything out of it. Until today.

I saw the dresses Kayli made for her girls and was motivated to try making an Easter dress for little miss A. I typically don't keep yardage of fabric on hand since I'm a quilter and prefer smaller cuts, but I happened to have a few yards of this Art Gallery fabric that I also bought at quilt market last May. Thankfully, my daughter approved of the non-pink options I gave her.

I used the Mary Sash Dress pattern from Jennifer's book.

Little miss A is on the small size, so although I used the XS pattern piece for the bodice, I still had to alter it a bit. I also wanted the dress to have wider straps at the shoulders.

And I kept the length of the sash the same, so it makes a nice big bow on the back.

The only real problem I ran into was a result of taking the bodice in a bit. You see, my children are blessed with larger than average heads (I like to tell myself it's because they are so smart). The altered bodice fit really well...except for the fact that I couldn't get it over my daughter's head. So I called my mom and asked her what I could do so I didn't have to start over. She suggested that I cut a slit in the back and add a button. So that's what I did. Although, I haven't attached the button yet.

You may have noticed her princess shoes. She was very excited to try the dress on, even though I hadn't hemmed it yet. She had to go find her shoes and her brother insisted on dressing up like a prince, which meant that he put on jeans (as opposed to the comfy lounge pants he was wearing), a long sleeve gray shirt, and his church shoes.

Overall, I think it was a success. I'm happy it came together pretty easily and that we found solutions for the couple snags I ran into. Best of all, it's daughter-approved. And perfect for practicing your curtsies.

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I've been quilting since 2010 and I've been blessed with a serious fabric obsession. My mom (the constant putterer) taught me to sew when I was ten, but I didn't really get into it until the last couple years. I've really enjoyed all that I'm learning about it. It's amazing to me to see fabric take on its own personality and become something new and unique in a beautiful quilt.

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As I work hard on all this stuff, please don't use any photos or text without permission. If you use information that I've mentioned can be used for personal use, please comply with my request. Feel free to link to my blog or reference my blog when using any tutorials or other related information.